


The Making of a Strong Heart

by Dark_Ella



Category: Thor - All Media Types, Thor: Tales of Asgard
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 02:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7023580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_Ella/pseuds/Dark_Ella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How the Lady Sif went from an aggressive, sobbing child to an aggressive, disciplined Valkyrie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Making of a Strong Heart

About halfway between Svartalfheim and Asgard, the training camp of Kona Lifandi lay nestled, wrapped about by miles of wooden fences. The four gates were nine feet high and so solid, so dense and timeless that they were said to have been made of branches dropped from Yggdrasil itself. The fortress of the Valkyries was said to be the most impermeable and defensible stronghold in all the realms. And yet, out here in the sweet wilds, where birds sang and foxes and badgers whelped their young year after year, it seemed in little need of such defenses. But this was a camp where women and war ruled, and the small citadel took it's purpose seriously.

Small Sif twisted her fists in her mother's dress and kicked violently, all while letting loose a stream of shrieks, pleas, threats and promises. Her father pulled her off, albeit with difficulty and threats of his own. "This will be a good place for you, you'll like it here." His grim voice was nearly lost in her yelps and her mother's cries. Sif struggled in her father's arms while he banged at the enormous knocker on the front gate. The twisted metal ring was held in the mouth of a brass swan; a beautiful bird with a harsh voice and an ugly temper. Sif hated it, as she hated everything these days. Swans chased you and bit at you while they hissed. 

"I'm sorry father, I'll do better." Sif wept, her eyes veined and swollen and damp. Her small, unlovely, angular face was puffed and blotched with rage and emotion, but she tried her best to look repentant and docile. "I won't beat the bread boy if he gives us day old loafs anymore, and I'll learn how to weave, I *will*. Also I won't be sad and cry because my hair got turned black." 

But it was too late, and she knew it. Sif had always been a little too out of sorts to fit in well. Firstly, in her family; where she had started causing trouble the moment she'd climbed the inside of the chimney when she was three and got stuck when she reached the chimney-pot; and later in school where she immediately avoided the clusters of politicking females; and then finally in the small community in Asgard where she lived and had gotten a reputation for biting. By age ten, Sif had become something of a legend for saying the wrong thing, being in the wrong place, or being at the center of some disaster. Folks usually stood well off from her, wary of sudden tantrums and well-placed kicks.

Sif believed, hoped, *wanted* to think that she could remember to keep her head down and speak quietly and not tear her clothes or forget to come home before darkness fell, could remember to curtsy and blush and flirt delicately, learn to hold things very carefully as her mother and sisters did. If only they would not leave her here, as they had told her they must, "for everyone's sake".

The vast gate creaked open, and Sif ceased her twisting and dangled awkwardly, fascinated as she looked up...and up. The woman who stood in the gap was from Alfheim, Sif knew. Her silvery hair was shorn close to her head, and in her hand was a cutlass. The young girl began to hope that this terrifying vision, with the cold grey eyes of a gimlet, would tell her father off. They would all go home and Sif would have some time to think of ways to keep her family happy. Ways to be a proper girl.

"Is this the child, then." Steely grey eyes pinned Sif in place, and the dark-haired girl sensed instantly that there was to be no reprieve for her, was to be no hope after all. 

"Yes, this is Sif, and she'll be staying with you until she's grown. Her mother and I, we cannot----" 

"Leave, then." The dismissal came, curt and final, interrupting as if Sif's father were of no more importance than an ant on a leaf. He stumbled back then, under the woman's icy command, and put his arms around his wife. Sif glared back at them with all the hatred and broken love of which her ferocious young heart was capable. She loved them, needed them to understand her. She didn’t *mean* to be difficult. Didn't she deserve to leave here between them? "We've made a mistake, of course we need her with us," they would say. Wouldn't they? 

They were already turning away, father and mother both giving each other guilty looks in their relief to be rid of the most difficult burden of their lives. Now they'd have some peace. And Sif, well, this looked like a beautiful place. She'd do well here. Neither looked back.

***

The barracks were cold in the night, dark and musty and filled with the creak of the wooden bed frames. The girl lay wrapped in a scratchy blanket. Soft, they'd called her. Ferocious determination filled every cell of Sif's body as she lay there. She'd show them all! But... Sif wondered about her friends. Would they miss her? They'd notice she was gone. She hoped they'd come break her out. Thor, and Loki, and Baldr, and the others. They'd had grand adventures; this summer Thor had taught her to fight him with sticks, Baldr had taught her to hold sweet grasses in her hand in just the right way to make a loud whistle when you blew through them; even Loki had forgiven her for throwing his book at a hornet's nest, finally, and taught her how to swim at the boy's favorite spot. In private, so they wouldn't all laugh at her. Fierce, prideful Sif had been grateful for that. Would they miss her? She missed them, with an ache that hurt worse than she'd ever known before. Pulling her knees to her chest, the girl wept some more.

***

Sif stood with her hands fisted at her waist, eyes sparking furiously at the blonde across from her. Brunnhilde was just as angry. They faced off, tense energy crackling between them as they measured each other up like strange cats. 

"I *said*, you're a wimp. You cry too much, you're lazy and you're not a very good aim." Sif breathed hard and restrained herself, though Brunnhilde's words burned and stung like bees. But complacently, the blonde kept going, and then Sif could take no more. "I hear you're friends with Thor. He's rather handsome, I bet someday he'll want to marry me. Men like blondes, after all." Sif cocked a fist and let it fly, and it would have smashed right into Brunn's nose, if she'd still been standing there. THUMP. But then suddenly Sif was dazed, looking straight into the sky as she lay on her back. What'd just happened? Other girls were supposed to scream and run, not hit back. She scrambled to her feet, touching a finger to the blood trickling out her burning nose. 

"I'll get you for that, you lumpy-faced potato!" This time Sif leapt on her with a shriek, and the two girls fell as one, claws scratching and voices shrilling out in screams and insults. Hildr the elf-woman watched from a distance, eyes appraising. When the girls had settled things (Sif's eye blackened, Brunn's nose and lip bleeding), she sent them in to peel lumpy potatoes. Enough for two hundred women. With glares, the two girls staggered to the canteen as ordered, each sitting on un upturned apple crate as they pared away the skins. 

"It's all your fault," Sif hissed. After all, Thor was *Sif's* friend. Brunn retorted, "You've only got yourself to blame, you're the one who said potato."

For the first two baskets of the starchy tubers, they'd seethed in silence and sent one another hateful stares. After four, Brunn was telling an interested Sif about how Hildr once killed a mountain troll who'd been trying to kidnap her for a bride, and had said she'd far rather have the mountain troll than a man. After six baskets were filled with dusty shaved potatoes, the two girls were to be fast friends for the rest of their lives; so close that far in the future, when the sun rose on the bloody day of Ragnarok, Sif was to take up the sword Dragonfang from the hand of her slain friend, and fight on in Brunnhilde's honor until her own death overtook her.

***

"You can leave this haven when you've earned it." Hildr's voice was stern, though not unkind. "The day you can escape here, you've become a warrior. You'll have my blessing to come and go as you wish. No one has come in or out without my permission, not in all the seasons of the Tree." 

Sif perked up at that. She could leave, and all she had to do was find a way to climb the enormous wall. In the dark. And find a way down the other side without cracking her bones open like too-dry branches. But then, Sif thought, she was older now, stronger than before; maybe she could do it! But somehow she kept putting off the attempt.

Sometime in all the dusty, noisy, busy days, Sif's twelfth birthday had come and gone unnoticed. No one had come to save her, not Baldr nor Heimdall nor anyone; perhaps it was up to her to get back home and convince her family she'd changed, had become stronger, and could be useful to them. And it was true. Sif didn't cry much these days; she was too busy waking up before the sun rose, making her bed and dressing swiftly in the dark before going for the daily run. She was too busy lifting and pulling and crawling her way through obstacle courses, learning how to ride and care for horses, how to care for steel and leather and how to scratch at itches underneath her difficult armor, and relieve herself out in fields. She could cook now, over fire rings, and her pancakes and biscuits were rather good. Sif had learned to kill and dress field animals, to eat roasted meat off sticks without burning her fingers or tongue (mostly). She spent her few free evenings in the weaving rooms, sitting on three-legged stools and listening to old women talk about their young fighting days as they twisted the wool they spun, and as they weaved the shuttle through the threads on the looms she heard tales of love that made her ears burn. Sif was pretty sure she could weave, too, if she had to, though. Her family was sure to be impressed, when they realized how much they missed her and came back for her.

But the days went by and Sif forgot about Hildr's promise. She grew in form and skill; her aim became true until even Brunnhilde had to admit it, and the day she left, she left through the front gate, tanned and strong and glad. The ranks of women stood in orderly rows as they left, Odin's new recruits for the Valkyrior. Brunn and Sif stood side by side, listening to Hildr give one last austere speech before she sent her fledglings out. 

"Stay away from Thor, potato face. But if you get lonesome, Sigmund might take you, he's fairly desperate," Sif laughed to Brunn under her breath. The beautiful young male had been at the gate a few months past for some errand, and the bare-armed women who'd answered his knock had stunned him into a gape-mouthed silence for longer than seemed intelligent. 

"Shut your cakehole, Sif, you can't have all the men in the realm. Maybe some nice mountain troll would take you." 

Sif held a hand out without looking away from Hildr, and Brunn took it and squeezed. 

"Oh not a mountain troll. I want to have a man of my own, and nine fat little children with names I can't remember, and spend my days washing things."

They watched Hildr with large solemn eyes, and suddenly, Hildr's stark cold eyes bore into Sif's.

"Leave here today with honor and strength. You are stronger than fear. You are stronger than men. You are stronger than monsters!"

The women gave a deafening roar and lifted their swords and fists to the sun. Sif's exuberant bellows joined the cacophony. Her family was here,beside her, and scattered all over the realms. What fun she'd have fighting with them, bleeding with them, adventuring with them. Friends and companions and enemies and foes perhaps, even. She stepped outside the gate, full of fight and sorrow and gladness and determination. She was ready.


End file.
